Conversations about Jim Crow

Developed in collaboration with the Maryland State Archives and the Captain Avery Museum and augmenting the Digital Maryland Online Blacks of the Chesapeake Collection, a series of interviews will be recorded as part of the Blacks of the Chesapeake Elevating Black Voices oral history initiative. Blacks of the Chesapeake will collect local residents’ fond memories of Elktonia, Sparrow‘s and Carr’s Beaches and other Black leisure destinations in the area including local summer colonies along the Annapolis “Black Coast,” hotels, and restaurants that offered hospitality during an inhospitable time. The curated interviews will be paired with images contributed by the interviewees. This oral history will tell the story of the many ingenious ways the community found to work around the strictures of Jim Crow. The curated interviews will be presented as a stand-alone video installation in cooperation with the Smithsonian Institution Museum on Main Street Spark! traveling exhibit that explores the theme of innovation and ingenuity.